My daughter understands why I need her live location: Navi Mumbai mom

Ankita Shah 29 peruses social media gets her steps in shops for groceries and completes her quota of calls for the day All the while the building where her daughtersmdashfraternal twins who are all of four years oldmdashattend junior kindergarten is never out of sightRight when Shah and her husband Anel residents of Navi Mumbai were blessed with two girls they knew ensuring their daughtersrsquo safety would be paramount Shah trained in fine jewellery designing is a homemaker and intends to remain one until her daughters are selfsufficientAnkita Shah 29 says that the conversation around good touch bad touch has taken over the home Shah admits that the pressure of ensuring the girls safety themselves seems to be the only option PicAshish RajeThe Shah household has been restless as the couple watch events unfold in the city since the news of the August 13 sexual assault of two Badlapur minors aged three and four broke on news channels last week That the survivors were the same age as their daughters made the nightmare feel too close to home ldquoAs soon as we heard their ages my husband motherinlaw and I felt a surge of fear Conversation among us has since been limited to how we can best deal with such threats as a family I was already extremely vigilant but this made our blood curdlerdquo says ShahThe family has already had the ldquogood touch bad touchrdquo conversation with the kids but since last week there have been regular refresher talks between Shah and the girls while getting them ready for class with their grandmother playing a supporting role Shah also does a daily checkin with the girls when she picks them up ldquoNow I teach them something every day or at least reinforce what was taught For example have a daily conversation of ldquogood touch bad touchrdquo Since the incident I check in with them every day on whether anyone misbehaved with them or said something bad to themrdquo she tells us over the phone Swati Popat Vats and Sushant KalraShah says she is satisfied with the security systems in place at her daughtersrsquo school but believes that her presence outside the girlsrsquo school sends an important message to potential miscreantsmdashthat a parent is always watchingShah is not alone in her concern for her kids With rising cases of students being sexually assaulted on campus many parents no longer see schools as the safe havens they were thought to beRuchita Dar Shah is a mother of two boys and says that the onus falls more on parents with boys Shah has sensitised her kids to consent to touching someone from the opposite gender PicKirti Surve ParadeDuring the COVID19induced lockdown in 2020 instances of child abuse assault and rape spiked At the time Mansi Zaveri a parenting coach and founder of online parenting platform Kidsstoppresscom and reiterates the importance of parents understanding the Protection of Children from Sexual Offences POCSO Act ChildLine India said that that year in particular saw around three lakh calls out of which 92000 were SOS calls ldquoEighty per cent of the calls were made by girls below 14 years of agerdquo says ZaverildquoWhat I am extremely proud to see in the Badlapur case is the parents standing up for their daughtersmdashyou might not think so but there is still a lot of taboo around sexual abuse of childrenrdquo says Zaveri adding ldquoWhen we were growing up in the rsquo80s and rsquo90s if we told our parents about something like this there would either be no response at all or wersquod get an explanation that adults didnrsquot mean to do it or might have done it by mistake Now parents accept that this sexual abuse is a reality and there are conversations on what we can do as parentsrdquoMansi Zaveri parenting coachBack in 2021 a UNESCO survey of 591 students across Delhi schools found that more than 60 per cent of students faced sexual abuse on campus Another 60 per cent revealed that their parents were familiar with the school staffer who had assaulted their kids but were not aware that this personwas the perpetratorThe same report further stated that nearly 30 per cent of the staff at schools in both Bihar and Delhi had not been verified by the police The survey also revealed that every fifth girl child mostly between the ages of five and nine has faced sexual assault in some form or the otherThe anger over the sexual assault spilled on to the station at Badlapur on August 20 suspending services for over 10 hours File picNavneet BarhateStatistics like these are the reason why collaboration between schools and parents via a parent body is essential remarks Zaveri ldquoIn Mumbai schools parents are active stakeholders but having a parent body that stays involved in whatrsquos happening at the school is crucial because it is better placed to pull up the school administration if there are any lapses The intention is not for the parent body to take over running of the school but more to do with monitoring so no one slacksrdquo says the Parel resident adding that social media and WhatsApp are powerful tools in parentsrsquo arsenalLike her many parents are now questioning what they can do to ensure a Badlapurlike case never happens at their childrenrsquos school whether itrsquos with a greater push for parentsrsquo involvement and more accountability from schools or with sex education for kidsldquoCollaborations with the school on sexual health workshops including on lsquogood touch bad touchrsquo lsquosafe and unsafe touchrsquo is still not at the level we need it to be For parents too education on the appropriate response in cases of sexual abuse is the need of the hourrdquo says ZaveriParents in Mumbai now have a number of ways to monitor their childrenrsquos movement School buses now have GPS tags that parents can track Others go a step further and provide their kids with GPSenabled devices like Airtags or Apple watches so they can keep an eye on their movements at all times In the past technology that enables parents to track school buses was organicially introduced as a mere safety upgrade parents have also pushed for live streams from their childrsquos classroom although that demand was quashed over privacy concernsSome might call this helicopter parenting a concept that has been much criticised as ldquooverprotective parentingrdquo and micromanaging of the childrsquos life Labels be damned say parents worried about their childrenrsquos safetyBeing involved does not make one a helicopter parent says Zaveri ldquoYes many are being called helicopter parents but monitoring your child for their safety is different so letrsquos not confuse the two My 16yearold understands why I ask her to send me her live location I just want her to be saferdquo she addsSwati Popat Vats president of the Podar Education Network as well as nonprofit Early Childhood Association ECA says ldquoIf being a helicopter parent means to ensure the safety and security of the child then I welcome these kinds of parents If the parentsrsquo involvement is for the safety of the child and not to micromanage their life I see no wrongrdquoIf anything Vats says parents today have given away too much power to schools and that the current outrage is but a kneejerk reaction to the Badlapur case ldquoParents protest when fees are hiked but wonrsquot hold schools accountable for the things that matter The school is providing you a service so why arenrsquot you seeking accountability for that service Ask about police verification why has it not been done I feel that parents from earlier generations were more direct proactive and questioned the school when it made a mistakerdquo she saysParenting experts however warn against excessive monitoring especially when it exposes other kids in the classroom ECA has been vital in slamming the brakes on an earlier demand by some parents for live streams from classrooms ldquoWhen you start a live stream there is open access to it This makes a bad situation worse as a predator can easily take the footage and manipulate it to their will Itrsquos not just your child there but 20 others in that classroom who become vulnerablerdquo says Vats appealing to parents to be more mindfulAlert parenting is not just about what happens when your child goes to schoolmdashit starts at home in how we converse with kids while teaching them to stay safe ldquoLanguage while teaching kids about abuse needs to be updatedrdquo says Ruchita Dar Shah curator of the book Khichdi For The Desi Momrsquos Soul and as someone who ran a mommy community for 13 years ldquoWith a child as young as three or four their vocabulary will be lsquogood touch and bad touchrsquo This has to graduate to lsquosafe and unsafe touchrsquo with advancing years It cannot be a onetime conversation anymorerdquoA big nono is funny names for private parts such as lsquochoo choorsquo or lsquochi chirsquo she warns ldquoIt confuses the child and they do not understand that this is a serious matter You cannot make the private parts sound like cartoon charactersrdquo she addsIn a study conducted in the US titled Preschoolersrsquo Knowledge of Genital Terminology A Comparison of English and Spanish Speakers Research 89 per cent of children knew the names of nongenital body parts yet only 10 per cent knew the correct names for genitalia Clinicians generally agree that using the correct terminology for private parts enhances childrenrsquos body image confidence and opennessBody safety is a key conversation to be had with kids starting from twoandahalf to three years of age says Sushant Kalra founder of the Parwarish Institute of Parenting Kalra suggests making discussions about body safety a part of everyday conversation such as at the dinner table ldquoIn the sessions we conduct with school kids we noticed since the Kolkata rapemurder case kids now ask how they can protect themselves from raperdquo he saysItrsquos clearly a concern that weighs on kidsrsquo mind too with so much conversation about the case But he stresses ldquoThey kids donrsquot even properly understand what rape is And parents are not talking about it Itrsquos important to strike a balance between the level of awareness kids have nowadays versus the conversations about such things at homerdquoWhen it comes to hearttohearts Shahmdashherself mom to two boysmdash feels that parents with sons have a bigger role to play ldquoI have told my boys very openly about the experiences I faced using public transport as a girl and then as a woman I have conversations about menstruation with them so they understand what girls around them are going throughrdquo she says adding ldquoAlso you cannot indulge them until their teens and then suddenly discipline them in their teens This creates adults who never learned boundariesrdquoShe recalls an incident when her eldest a 19yearold engineering student refused to take part in the tradition of giving ldquobirthday bumpsrdquo to a female classmate in college ldquoHe heard my voice in his head questioning how a girl would feel with that kind of physical touch He said he kept thinking lsquoWhat will mom thinkrsquo That is a win in my bookrdquo she saysInputs by Anand Singh and Dipti SinghStatersquos new guidelines for schools thinspCCTV cameras now mandatory throughout school premises excluding restrooms thinspMaintenance checks by beat marshals or mobile teams thinspPermanent stationing of female staff outside girlsrsquo restrooms thinspAssignment of female sanitation workers to girlsrsquo loos thinspRequirement of female staff presence on all student transport thinspMandatory police verification of all sanitation workers at schools thinspTieups with NGOs for selfdefence training for female students thinspA separate panel of female parents to be set up at schools with monthly meetingsBadlapur parents speakldquoThe scars left on the girls and the fear instilled in their minds will take time to heal Right now our priority is to ensure they recover emotionally and physically Wersquoll consider transferring them to another school once theyrsquore betterrdquoParents of the survivorsldquoMy two daughters attend the same school When I confronted the school officials they seemed more concerned about the institutersquos reputation than bringing the perpetrator to justice Regarding the stonepelting and rail blockade I ask what would you do as parents of a little girl who was sexually assaultedrdquoParent of a student at the Badlapur schoolldquoThis is not the first time the school has tried to cover up an incident Wersquove heard about many such cases that were quietly handled by the administration and never addressed properly This incident has left all of us questioning the safety of our children in this schoolrdquoA protesting parent24hour helpline for child sex abuse1098